#hyperloop

Musk never had any intention of building the Hyperloop. He only needed it to help kill or substantially delay the high-speed rail project and the alternate vision of sustainable collective transportation it offered. It threatened his interests as an automaker and his elite vision of “individualized” mobility that simply worked better for him.

[...]

Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation company building tube-encased lines to zip passengers and freight from city to city at airplane-like speeds, is shutting down, according to people familiar with the situation.

Once a high-profile startup, Hyperloop One raised more than $450 million since its founding in 2014, according to PitchBook. It built a small test track near Las Vegas to develop its transportation technology, and for a time took the name Virgin Hyperloop One after Richard Branson’s Virgin invested. Virgin removed its branding after the startup decided last year to focus on cargo rather than people.

Buried halfway through: it's another failed Elon Musk venture.

Not mentioned at all: the only reason Musk proposed Hyperloop was to thwart California's high-speed rail initiative and sell more cars. You see, his alternative technology of shooting supersonic capsules through evacuated vacuum tubes would be so much better than stinky old trains.

The only problem?

None of the technology exists. All the prototypes sucked. Even after ten years and a half billion dollars.

One "prototype" is literally a one-lane concrete tunnel allowing a single Tesla automobile to travel at astonishing speeds up to 107 MPH. Technically you can drive faster than that on most american highways.

Also that's 50-100 MPH slower than the high speed rail California wanted to implement a decade ago.

And now the whole venture is quietly going away.

Colossal waste of time and money, produced and accomplished nothing, other than diverting interest and investment from other forms of mass transit so the creep could sell more expensive electric cars (probably his real angle all along).

Look who's there, my new sticker design ! Obviously a good pair with my "Train Good" sticker.